Following the anti-drones march on Twitter
Over the weekend I followed a march to Waziristan. Not in person, unfortunately. Instead I followed the historic anti-drones peace march all the way from Islamabad to Waziristan and back again...via Twitter.
On Saturday morning Reprieve's Director Clive Stafford Smith sent me the first of 182 text messages. Bit-by-bit, over the following two days, I posted these messages on Twitter to the organisation's 9000+ 'followers'.
After months of complicated preparation, Clive's first text was jubilant: "Massive crowds huge media discourse project already a success." Punctuation, it seemed, was a luxury to be jettisoned in favour of expediency. I typed it up and we were off.
Quickly I was hooked: to my phone as the messages from Clive flooded through, and to Twitter as I watched the same messages reverberate around the universe, sometimes to hundreds of thousands of people (via Imran Khan's retweets) and sometimes just to tens of people (via retweets from my personal account).
I followed as the march made its way through Talagang...buzz..."Hard to get through this small town as the goodwill among locals for our solidarity is astounding"...then wound slowly to Dhulli...buzz..."more loud cheers and trumpets. Poverty all around now donkeys rest in the midday head the cost of a hell fire missile could do much good here"... and on the way to DI Khan...buzz..."Biggest crowd yet but speeches over back on road to di khan. News of car bomb in peshawar far away but sad."
Twitter works in the same way as most other things in life. The more you give out, the more you get back. As an ever-greater number of Clive's messages flew out into the ether, and as news of the march spread across the wider media, I sat and watched people's reactions streaming onto the screen in front of me. It was extremely - and somewhat surprisingly - moving.
"@ReprieveUK we appreciate your efforts", said one person, "@ReprieveUK thank you for being a part of Imran Khan's rally. Deep respect for you guys" said another. "@ReprieveUK from being Pakistani I am really thankful to you people you came so far for us really admiring thanks."
As I watched the reaction online, Clive watched it along the roadside in Pakistan...buzz..."Sign: We believe in Islam Pakistan warmly welcomes foreigners participating in this sacred act saving bloodshed."
Those on the march were several hours ahead of the UK so while they ate dinner in DI Khan... buzz..."Now eating buffalo quail at dinner several years in purgatory for me..." and then went to sleep, I made my way to West London for Pizza.
6am on Sunday morning and the text messages from Clive began flooding my inbox once more. We were off again...buzz..."Yes there are threats in the air but we all hope it will be safe and locals so grateful we care."
News of the march had spread overnight and the Reprieve account had amassed several hundred new Twitter followers - our own little virtual anti-drones peace march. We were all thousands of miles apart, but completely connected. As Clive neared Tunk, Pakistan, he sent word saying he was missing his son - who had just text messaged him en route from Dorset to the London Science Museum. I Tweeted this while visiting my sister in Brighton, and watched as it was reTweeted by people as far and wide as the US and across Pakistan.
The march continued, the messages continued...buzz..."Hard for us to get to Tank ourselves there are so many people here"...buzz..."Nobody noticed but we already passed where we were going to be stopped"...buzz... "ISI Agent says Tank attack threat was fake".
There were moments of humour...buzz..."Gosh that was the hardest fought trip to the toilet ever IK and I had to get through a crowd rougher than the Kop"...and the inevitable organisational tribulations that come with such an ambitious project...buzz... "Just need to set up sound system first...Ooops! Sound system way back in the convoy how will it get through?"
Following the march virtually on Twitter rather than literally in a Corolla was striking in its symbolism. Such interconnectedness was, after all, the whole point of the anti-drones march. As we are all constantly reminded: the world is more connected than ever. People in the West may be thousands of miles apart, of different religions, and ethnicities, and political allegiances to those in Waziristan, but as always there is far more that unites us than divides us.
A US operator at Creech airforce base in Nevada can press some buttons and send a drone to the other side of the world to kill people. The US would like this inconvenient truth to be kept secret. Unfortunately for them, advances in technology which allow unmanned vehicles to terrorise an entire population in the so-called 'war on terror' also mean that now the rest of the world can watch while they do it.
Waziristan is pretty inaccessible. Yet on the 6th and 7th of October, 2012, a convoy 9 miles long composed of brave activists made their way towards the region to draw attention to the plight of those who live there; of those who can not turn around and leave.
Local people, international journalists, lawyers, and activists accompanied the march. Clive was one person sending technologically humble text messages through to one other person. But via laptops and smart phones from London to the USA, to Pakistan and back again, thousands upon thousands of people followed their progress spreading the message of the march loud and clear: no more lethal drones.
Source: http://reprieve.org.uk/2012_10_11_antidrones_march_following_twitter
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